Follow the Stars
by piaffe417
Summary: He’d led her through life with the same deft ease that he had when navigating the forest trails near their frontier home and yet when he departed life before her, he had left no marked trail behind him.


Author's Note – "The Last of the Mohicans" has been my favorite movie since high school and I think I could probably recite the whole thing from memory. (Yeah, I'm fun at parties.) The last time I watched it, I got this little idea so here it is. Feel free to review and, if you're a CI fan, you should know that exorcising this little plot demon from my brain has freed up some space for new Bobby/Alex goodness. Stay tuned! (Also, please don't sue me because I don't own these people - Daniel Day-Lewis is too high maintenance anyway.)

She lasted a full year alone after he died, a fact that was surprising to all who knew the couple and their history. She'd been so long by his side and he by hers, each representing one half of the whole, that it was nearly inconceivable for her to exist on her own. And yet she did, her body sustaining itself through the end of fall as the days shortened, the nights grew crisper, and the earth prepared itself to sleep beneath a blanket of snow.

Ultimately, she admitted to her daughter, she lasted for one simple reason: she wasn't sure where to go, for she'd always relied on him for that. Nathaniel: tracker, guide, friend, lover, husband. He'd led her through life with the same deft ease that he had when navigating the forest trails near their frontier home and yet when he departed life before her, he had left no marked trail behind him; there were no broken branches or footprints to tell her how to follow. She was bereft and therefore had nothing else to do but continue to live.

And yet, she confessed, she looked each day and each night for the sign that she knew he would send. She sought the trail that would lead her to where he was and she knew it would one day appear. Until then, she could wait.

They had laid him in the earth at the turning of seasons the year previous and enough time had passed that his grave had been smoothed over by nature, his spirit gone to reside in those very stars that he had long ago pointed out as the only grave marker he had ever wished to have. Unable to comply fully with this request, Cora had seen to it that he had a simple stone at his head, but she looked up to the stars whenever she spoke to him, for there was no point in speaking to the earth if he was no longer there. He was in the heavens now – she felt it – amongst those stars that she had, as a child, thought to be rather cold and impersonal in the glittering distance. Now the same stars had become a source of comfort to her and she often spent clear evenings on the front porch of her daughter's cabin, communing with her old friends who shone down with such a gentle glow. Since Nathaniel had first described the monument of the sky to her, the stars had come to represent so many more people than she'd ever thought possible. On that long ago night – the night when she'd first seen him - _really seen him_ - he told her that it represented the spirit of the earth and of his parents and his friends, John and Alexandria Cameron, but now she rarely looked up without thinking too of her father, her sister Alice, friend Duncan Heyward, Nathaniel's Mohican brother Uncas, his Mohican father Chingachgook, the baby boy that they had lost during their first year of marriage, countless other friends, and now Nathaniel himself.

But nowhere did she see a roadmap of how to join them.

"Your father spoke to me with his eyes," Cora told her eldest daughter Ellie on the evening of her confession, that night in early fall when she professed to being lost and unsure of herself. The pair sat by the fireside in Ellie's home, Cora having long since abandoned the one that she and Nathaniel had shared. It was too quiet without him and she found that living in a place where the sounds of her grandchildren and her daughter and son-in-law filled the air made the quiet retreat a bit. It made her continued sentence of existence bearable.

Though her old eyes were too worn out to be able to knit, Cora held the yarn for Ellie as her fingers flew through the motions, creating what would become a new sweater in the end. And because her mind was not occupied with the monotony of looping the yarn over and over itself, Cora was free to remember and to profess her frustration at being alone to her one and only daughter, who listened in silent understanding. Ellie knew well the love that her parents' shared and, as her father's "special girl," she too felt his loss acutely. And as she listened to her mother speak, she heard the tale of their meeting and strange yet passionate courtship for what seemed like first time.

"From the first day I saw him, he never had to say a word to me," Cora continued, her own eyes far away, "he just had to look at me and I'd simply _know_. In the forest, on the old George Road, when he and Uncas and Chingachgook came to our aid, he looked at me before they led us into the woods and I knew that he would do everything in his power to keep Alice and me safe. And from that day on, we almost never had to speak – I simply had to look at him to understand…"

She trailed off then, her mind lost in the memory of the time that had passed with such speed that it seemed as though it had only occurred a day or a week previous. Moments frozen permanently in her mind revealed themselves to her one by one with a clarity and precision that hadn't been there since his passing:

_A burned out cabin – bodies mutilated and strewn about with reckless fervor, stricken down by a hasty war party. The smoke curled from the remains of the home but the fire had only just been lit in the burning gaze of Nathaniel as Cora spoke her mind._

"Though they're strangers, they at least deserve a Christian burial."

"Leave them, miss." He moved away.

When he'd spoken, his gaze was shuttered and unreadable – a demeanor she'd taken for indifference and, true to her nature, she said so, angrily berating him for his lack of emotion. Her words were like a spark to dry tinder, however, because Nathaniel came back at her as though burned himself, such pain shining in his eyes that her own stomach wrenched and she stepped back fearfully.

With clipped precision, he hissed: "Miss Munro, they're not strangers. And they stay as they lay."

He turned away then, but not before she'd seen the tears threaten to fall. She had expected that he, like his red companions, would be stoic and unfeeling and yet all three were visibly shaken and mournful.

And as he laid a gentle, comforting hand on the shoulder of the younger Mohican, Uncas, she wondered what else she had been wrong about when she thought of the frontier and its inhabitants from a parlor in Boston and in London.

_A moonlit evening, crouched in a native burial ground with Abenaki warriors and French woodsmen hunting for them nearby. Major Duncan Heyward, a family friend, and Nathaniel's Mohican companions stood guard and Cora huddled near the scout not only for protection, but out of curiosity. He had revealed layers to his personality that afternoon and she wanted an opportunity to explore further. As though willing to play along, he lay back and sought her eyes in the darkness…_

As they spoke in hushed tones, curiosity and mirth began to creep into his gaze, so strongly that they permeated the hazy darkness around them. It was odd to her that, despite focusing intently on keeping their party safe from harm and despite the fact that he was mourning for the his friends, he was able to tease her with such ease.

He began to tell her, "My father warned me…"

She cut him off sharply to ask, "Your father?" but he continued without hurry, glancing over in a withering fashion as if she should have known of whom he spoke: "_Chingachgook_ - he warned me about people like you."

"Oh he did?" she felt her face flush with annoyance. How did this near stranger manage to upset her so? How did he cause her blood to boil without even changing his tone?

"Yes," Nathaniel's manner never wavered and he seemed content to continue to bait her. "He said do not try to understand them and do not make them try to understand you. That is because they are a breed apart and make no sense."

They were suddenly interrupted by the approaching war party and she picked up a rifle lying nearby, accepting Nathaniel's powder horn silently and watching his eyes flash with surprise and admiration in the moonlight as she primed the rifle expertly. Though her actions were for naught (as the native warriors refused to enter sacred ground and the group moved away as silently as they'd come), she felt a stab of pride at being able to surprise him for the first time. It was only when she was sure they were safe and her senses had returned to normal that she remembered to be frustrated with him. "A breed apart? We make no sense?"

And he'd been waiting for that moment, for his amused reply was, "In your particular case, miss, I'd make allowances."

She saw a laugh manifest in his eyes and the genuine affection he held for her – so sudden and unexpected, as they'd only known each other mere hours! Later, she admitted to herself that she fell in love with him at that moment, the moment when his eyes first held hers and she realized that they understood one another without making a sound.

_In the surgery, in the lamplight while she treated the gash on Uncas's side, she saw him enter from the corner of her eye and heard him tease his brother lightheartedly. And when she turned to face him, she discovered him staring directly at her, dark eyes resting on her with such reverence that she fought the urge to turn around to see if he was looking through her to see something on the wall behind. Certainly no one had ever peered at her so intensely… _

"What are you looking at, sir?" she asked in her best London tone. In the city, to stare thus was offensive and rude. And yet here, she sensed, such manners were acceptable – normal even - and she didn't mind, though the proper English lady in her was most certainly uncomfortable with the custom.

"I'm looking at you, miss," he told her honestly, then cracked into a gentle smile that widened his hawk-like features and softened his gaze.

Only when she dropped her own eyes and stared at the floor to assuage some of her embarrassment did Cora allow a small smile to cross her face.

_Across the compound, fiddle music swirling around them like dried leaves in autumn, she walked right into the wall of his gaze before she realized where she was – and the longing was so intense in his eyes that she had taken his hand and allowed herself to be led away without questioning where they would go or what would happen. At the top of the bastion he stopped and turned, and when his eyes found her again, the longing had been replaced by a raw rush of lust…_

She had never been kissed in any manner that could be considered overtly romantic, as such things were reserved for times behind closed doors in polite London society, and the very few fumbling ministrations of her wild youth had done nothing to prepare her for the moment she was presented with. Yet Nathaniel seemed so sure of her that it seemed to be the most natural thing in the world for her to run her hands up and down his biceps, feeling the power and also the gentleness there, and then to lean in until their breaths mingled and their lips met. And as the kiss deepened and the intensity increased, Cora found that no previous experience could possibly have prepared her for what happened to her body and mind, for the distant fiddle disappeared into the sound of her own breathing and a pounding in her ears that she prayed was not her heart threatening to spring from her chest. Nathaniel's embrace seemed to be the only thing preventing her from flying away on a wave of passion and she clung to him as though drowning, seeking to draw him so far inside her that she could somehow shield them both from the world outside.

When they finally parted and stood looking into the night, her body held flush against his chest, she didn't need to see his eyes to know that whatever they had found was deeper than anything she had ever thought possible. She didn't need to see because she felt it in the deep thudding of his heart, the rhythm mimicking her own in perfect sync.

_In the stockade, in the dim and hazy light with the stale odor of bodies in close confinement filling her nostrils and the earth-shattering explosions of French weaponry causing her heart to leap into her throat, she saw fear in him for the first time. His eyes sought to reassure her, but she could see that they veiled the uncertainty that he felt – not for himself, but for her._

"Stay close to your father," he intoned, trying visibly to keep his words from shaking. "The officers among the French will try to protect the officers among the English."

"I will find you," she protested, his uncertainty making her argument weak to her own ears. Still, she could not fathom having found him only to lose him to a conflict that she did not entirely understand.

"Do not." His voice was so stern that she felt herself start, almost as though another explosion had just rocked the fort.

She slid into his arms, the cold bars between them, and held onto him for what seemed like hours, ear straining for his heartbeat beneath the scratchy fabric of his shirt. And when she said, "The whole world's on fire," she wasn't merely referring to the war outside the meager window to the cell, but also to her own heart, which burned with desperation for a way – any way – to save him from what seemed like certain death, if not by French hands, then by her own father's men.

"You're defending him because you've become infatuated with him!" Duncan had raged at her when she had protested Nathaniel's arrest for sedition. But it wasn't infatuation that had caused her to take up the scout's defense, it was love, pure and simple. She had never seen in Duncan's pale eyes the sort of warm passion that shot directly into her heart whenever Nathaniel looked at her and that newly-discovered feeling was worth fighting for. The war outside had become an afterthought.

_In the melee, across the smoke-filled field and over the screams of the dying and wounded, she saw the absolute horror that overcame his face as the Huron warrior touched the blade to her throat. And she fought to memorize every feature of Nathaniel's face in that split second, for she was certain that it was the last thing she would see._

Yet before she could draw her final breath, the warrior was dead on the ground, his head split open with a fatal wound, and Nathaniel's arm was around her waist, pulling her to safety. She inhaled shakily, leaning into him for support because her knees were still knocking together, and let him place her into a bobbing canoe so that they and the other survivors could escape. And as he began to paddle with fluid, even strokes, Nathaniel's eyes met Cora's and a message passed between them: "I will protect you."

_Under the waterfall, the roar of it so loud that she couldn't hear her own thoughts clearly, he told her with his eyes of the death of her father at the hand of Magua, the Huron warrior and French spy. No words needed to pass between them when she asked the question because, though a part of her knew the answer when she spoke, she could see the guilt appear in his face that told her the truth: he could only save one of them and he had chosen Cora._

"Say nothing to Alice," she managed to whisper as she allowed him to fold her into his embrace, hands forming fists in anger and frustration that such violence existed in the world. And yet she too felt guilt within herself, not for any action that she had or had not taken, but because she felt safer with Nathaniel than she ever had with her father. She felt that if she could be with him and stay at his side for the rest of her life, she would never be truly afraid again – and that felt like the ultimate betrayal of her father, a man who had given his life to create what he thought to be a better world for his children.

And as Nathaniel's remorseful gaze fell on her as he stood poised before the wall of water, preparing to leap to safety as the Huron war party approached their hiding place, she was surprised to discover that she was not, in fact, afraid at all. Their eyes stayed locked on each other for a long moment – this time she was not ashamed to stare or be stared at, for the proper English lady in her had vanished at the fort – and between them passed an entire conversation without words:

"I don't want to leave you."

"You must."

"I will find you."

"I know that. I have faith."

"You told me that I was the one but you were wrong – it's you who is the one."

"I love you but you must go."

"I will find you."

He turned and was gone from sight.

_In the mountains, the smell of rifle smoke hanging in the air mingled with something sharply metallic – blood? – she saw the frustration and the horror in Nathaniel's face as he examined their situation and saw the inevitable end play out in his mind. He knew what would happen and fought to stop it but he failed. The fates had obviously already dealt the cards and nothing could reverse the outcome – not a lucky rifle shot, not a frantic sprint up a mountain path, and not the love of a father or brother. And as the sun began to disappear over the far horizon, his eyes sought Cora's once more, asking her a question and seeming to fear the answer._

"Are you all right?" his eyes wanted to know, wary that she was overwhelmed by the events of the last few days and visibly fearing that he had not protected her enough.

Her answer was to pull him close and press a kiss to his cheek. Her heart was heavy but it was still beating and she knew then that she would live to see old age and that Nathaniel would be by her side.

Certainly over the course of the rest of their life together there were more silent conversations, more triumph and more tragedy, and more events that the naïve girl who left England on a ship to visit her father in the colonies could never have foreseen. And yet whenever she thought of him now, it was the Nathaniel whom she first met on the George Road that she saw – lanky and slightly sunburned, his hair as long as hers and his features sharp and angular, as though he had been chiseled by a careful craftsman. He had kept his lean and muscular frame right up until the end, though the hair had turned to pale silver and his face had relaxed into a gentle roadmap of the places he'd been and the things he'd seen. The only thing that had never altered were his eyes – they could stop her in her tracks or draw him to her with a force so strong that it never failed to make her catch her breath.

It was those eyes she saw in the stars night after night – and those eyes she longed to see again.

"You should probably get some sleep," Ellie's voice was maternal as she took the yarn from her mother's hands to stow away until the following evening's work.

"I think I'll sit out on the porch a bit first," Cora was almost startled to hear the raspy voice of an older woman emerge from her lips, so lost in the past had she been only moments before.

"Take a blanket; it's cold," Ellie told her by way of protest.

In the rocking chair on the porch of her daughter's cabin, Cora wrapped herself in a quilt and leaned back so that her view of the night sky was unobstructed, the chill of the approaching fall sharpening her senses. As always, she sought a trail marker or a brighter-than-usual star – anything that might lead her to where Nathaniel had gone. And as always, the stars shone evenly and seemed just as far away as they always did.

"You be strong, you survive," Nathaniel told her that long ago day beneath the waterfall as the Huron war party encroached upon them. "You stay alive, no matter what occurs! I will find you. No matter how long it takes, no matter how far - I will find you."

It had been a year since his passing and yet Cora knew that those same words still rang true. He would find her and bring her to him if only she could be patient a while longer.

The hour must have grown late, for Cora felt her eyelids grow heavy – despite her half-hearted wish to stay awake just a bit longer – and finally she allowed the hazy fingers of sleep to wash over her tired body, the warm folds of the quilt sealing out the cold and the soft starlight bathing her face in gentle shadow. But just as she began to surrender completely, she was bolted awake by a familiar voice calling to her: "Cora!"

She sat up and let the quilt fall away, her body moving more quickly than it had in years but not protesting the strain. Eyes wide, she sought the source of the shout, frantically scanning the stars and the landscape for any signs of movement as the voice repeated itself: "Cora!"

She blinked once and then she saw him standing before her – it was Nathaniel, the Nathaniel of her memory who stood tall and confident in his buckskins, Killdeer at his side. He stood silhouetted against the shimmering backdrop of the waterfall as she had seen him on that fateful day in her youth, hand outstretched to her and eyes locked on her face. Yet as she stood to run to him, she hesitated a moment, feeling a bit of that old fire return to her veins.

"What are you waiting for, sir?" she asked him, voice not at all coy but rather reminiscent of the old Cora, the one who had first caught his eye and protested his actions.

The much-loved and familiar grin split his face and he replied, "I'm waiting for you, miss."

"I've been waiting for you too," she told him as she fell into his arms.

Cora felt no fear as, hands joined, they leapt into the waterfall.

FIN


End file.
